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June192017

20:39

The untold story of how cats came in from the wild to commandeer the finest armchairs and win over the internet has been laid bare by a comprehensive analysis of ancient feline DNA.

Drawing on genetic material from mummified cats in Egypt, and remains from Viking graveyards and stone age sites, researchers pieced together how cats first came to live with humans and ultimately spread around the world as their companions.

Scientists extracted DNA from the bones, teeth, hair and skin of more than 200 long-dead animals found at sites in the Near East, Africa and Europe. The material shows that all tamed cats today descend from the African wildcat or Felis silvestris lybica, a subspecies found in North Africa and the Near East.

Having established the root of our relationship with cats, the scientists found that the path to domestication probably began when early farmers in the Near East began to stockpile grain about 9,000 years ago. From that moment on, there was no looking back.

“With the invention of agriculture, stocks of grain built up in villages, the stocks attracted rodents, and the rodents attracted cats,” said Thierry Grange, a senior researcher on the team at the University of Paris Diderot. Once the animals proved their worth as pest exterminators, the relationship appears to have blossomed. …

...In the era of the Vietnam war and of summers of rioting all across the US, when Americans were losing faith in their system of government and their moral rectitude in the world at large, West didn’t represent a simplistic view of good v evil – he revealed the absurdity of it. His enemies’ plots are so ludicrous, the capers so dumb, his solutions so pure (at one point good dental hygiene literally saves Robin’s life), that they challenge the very concept of black-and-white morality, in the same way that marginalised groups were challenging America’s assumed brilliance towards the end of the 1960s.

The act of taking Batman seriously, ironically, turns him into a less subversive character – once he’s embodied by Affleck, situated in the real world with real people, he can no longer challenge the lunacy of the world around us.

So thank you, Adam West, for being the most relevant Batman. At a time when the world is crazier than ever, we need more of his camp Dada-esque, universe-challenging performances, that make us question our own moral compass, not these simplistic grey and gritty reboots, even if they have a smattering of jokes here and there. Embrace silliness. Weaponise the madcaps. Say “FLRBBBB” to the status quo.

The Conservative council responsible for the tower block where at least 79 people died in a fire described by the mayor of London as preventable has stockpiled £274m of reserves and offered rebates to residents paying the top rate of council tax.

According to the latest accounts, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea ran a budget surplus, which Labour councillors have claimed was being used as a slush fund to bribe voters with a rebate close to elections.

A draft statement of Kensington and Chelsea’s accounts for 2016-17 disclosed that the council has an “AA” credit rating and a financial standing described as robust, with “usable reserves at 31 March 2017 of £274m (£300m at 31 March 2016)”.

The council has been relieved of responsibility for taking care of the survivors of the disaster, having struggled to cope with the aftermath of the deadly blaze. A new Grenfell fire response team, made up of representatives from central government, the British Red Cross, the Metropolitan police, London-wide local and regional government and the London fire brigade, will now coordinate efforts.

The council decided to hand back £100 to residents paying the top rate of council tax in 2014 after a claimed “overachieving efficiency drive”, a decision criticised in a letter to the Guardian following the high-rise fire.

The rebate was paid weeks before local elections which returned a Conservative council, the author of the letter wrote. “Austerity, K&C style: you give to the rich while taking from the poor (nobody with discounted bills or claiming council tax support was eligible to share in the bounty of the town hall blue-chips).

“As the toxic ash of Grenfell Tower’s vanity cladding falls over the neighbouring streets, we are left with the acrid truth in our throats: regeneration in the Royal Borough is in fact a crime of greed and selfishness,” the author wrote.

Labour councillors have said the refund was a form of bribe handed to wealthy voters just before the local elections. Robert Atkinson, leader of the council’s Labour group, told a budget meeting this year that the Tories were “bribing the electorate with its own money” after the council “systematically and deliberately created underspends”. …

Some survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire have been housed in poor quality bed and breakfast accommodation with no functioning showers, according to the local councillor representing residents of the block.

While most survivors were content with the hotel accommodation they had received, at least two single men had been housed in “really horrible B&Bs”, Judith Blakeman said. The Labour ward councillor attended a private meeting of survivors on Monday, where she heard that one man was moved from a very basic and dirty room to a second substandard bed and breakfast where the showers were not working, she said.

Five days after the fire, officials called in to help with the relief effort expressed shock that there was still no central list of all the people affected and in need of help, amid continuing criticism of Kensington and Chelsea council’s response to the crisis.

The transfer of responsibility for the aftermath of the tragedy to London Resilience, a city-wide emergency response team, has led to improved efficiency, those involved in the relief operation said. By Monday evening, 126 households from the tower and the damaged block immediately at the foot of the building had been housed in hotels in or close to the borough.

The response team dismissed rumours that anyone would be rehoused far from their original homes. “It is absolutely not the case that anyone is being placed a long distance away. We have endeavoured to keep accommodation as local as possible, and we completely accept residents’ wishes to remain close to the community,” the new official coordinating body, the Grenfell Response Team (which has representatives from London-wide local government, central government, British Red Cross, the Metropolitan police and London fire brigade) said in a statement. …

… Some families who live in low-rise blocks adjoining the tower, who were initially given hotel accommodation, were told on Monday they should return to their homes, despite the absence of hot water, and residents’ concerns about pollution and the risk of falling debris.

“The people who were evacuated are being asked to go back to flats that have no hot water and where there has been no risk assessment. There needs to be a printed copy of the fire safety risk assessment,” Blakeman said.

Beinazir Lasharie, another Labour ward councillor who lives in a block at the bottom of the tower, said she had not received the reassurances she needed about the safety of her flat, which is just 20ft from the ruined building. She said she felt officials had treated her “like a nuisance” when she asked questions about air quality, fire safety and the risk of falling debris.

Man1: hey what’s the weather like out side? I heard it’s going to storm.
Man2: *looks out side to see a small alien peeking through the window back at him*
Oh I dont know, it’s a little grey out there.

Chicken WHAT KIND OF FEELIN', A TOUCH OF GEORGIA SLIDE, A SONG OF PURE REVIVAL AND A PRICE ONE THING

A protostar is reached, then nuclear fusion begins and a princess and almost lapping my feet again felt a crop flush” Vel “I escaped from two vet nurses because I had to be a chiken 🐥. IS RICK HARRISON AND THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TELL ME MY PROPHECY.